


Stellar Nucleosynthesis

by jerseydevious



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Barry Allen is The Flash, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Guest Appearances by Hawkman and The Atom and Big Barda, M/M, that's why barry's definitely not dead and hal is also not dead, the canon here is wibbly and bent around the story i wanted to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21653050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: I was prompted to write the Justice League finding out about Bruce and Hal being in a relationship, and the thing about the Justice League is, it's huge. So I just threw in a bunch of characters I like, and made a fine medley of; deliberately ignoring canon where it suits me, making shit up where it suits me, and having fun where it suits me.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Hal Jordan, Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 40
Kudos: 263





	Stellar Nucleosynthesis

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, okay, a note about canon: I ignored it. I just diddly damn ignored it. I know Barry's dead. I know Hal's enjoying his jaunt as the Spectre, and therefore also dead. I also ignored all of that, because I wanted to write a story where Batgirl!Cass hands Hal's ass to him on a silver platter, because everything is so much more badass when Cass is Batgirl, you don't even know. Comics are fun, and I don't have to do what they tell me to. There's also a significant amount of Batman canon I ignore here, too, but I also......... just ignore that canon in general, pretty much all of the time. There's also Hawkman canon I'm ignoring. There's a metric fuckton of Justice League canon I am forcibly bending to my will. Listen, listen, it's a JD fic, it was never going to be canon-compliant anyway.
> 
> That said, I wrote this for a dear friend of mine, and it got out of control. As in, this fic is probably going to end up around 30k. Was all of it necessary? Even the part where Booster Gold, Batman, and Green Lantern Hal Jordan get knocked out of the timestream and end up in a pocket dimension where everyone's gun-slingin' cowboys? Yes. The answer is yes.

The milk ended up being no good, so Hal stood and shoveled dry cereal in his mouth, watching the TV. He’d popped in a movie into his shitty DVD player, fully intending to have the night to himself; he was Earthside, for once, and he had nowhere to be, for once, and it was freeing. Sweats and a Flash t-shirt and  _ The Mask _ with some stale cereal on the side was probably not anyone else’s idea of a vacation, but after settling an inter-planetary gang war, it was a delectable kind of normalcy. Shitty, in a fun, kitschy way. He’d debated calling for pizza, but calling for pizza meant putting on a t-shirt that didn’t have a large bloodstain over the chest, and when given the option of laying on the couch, doing anything other than laying on the couch just sounded like a bad deal. 

His phone vibrated halfway through the movie, and Hal pulled it out of his pocket _ —the man of your dreams, _ the contact read, which Barry had changed it to after slipping Hal’s phone off of him—and tapped the green button. 

“Make it fast, my dinner’s getting cold,” Hal said. 

“Wouldn’t want that to happen, McD’s tastes even shittier when it’s cold.”

“Shut up, you ever had a cold fry, a couple hours out of the fryer? It’s beautiful. Shit heaven, man. No, though, seriously, what do you want, this is my one night off for the rest of the—I don’t know, lifetime.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Barry said.

Hal shifted the phone to his shoulder and pinned it to his ear; he leaned forward, and switched off the TV. When Barry called, Barry could talk for hours, and Hal had absolutely no chance of getting out of this call until midnight. He didn’t really mind, most of the time—it was good to listen to Barry ramble on about anything and everything, helped Hal re-center himself, feel a little less lonely.

“Oh, please, you try dealing with the He’evalian, Gorok, and Rothan inter-planetary gang wars—the history goes back an entire fucking millenia, you know? And it’s nasty history, they use hostile bioforms instead of anything simple, like, I don’t know, a goddamn lightsaber. I could handle a lightsaber. But alien bugs with an altered genome, artificially designed to deposit space ebola in me? Jesus Christ, it was the worst.”

Barry snorted. “That’s not a gang war, that’s a Margaret Atwood novel.” 

“Oh, c’mon.”

“Seriously, Clark lent it to me,” Barry said. “You should’ve seen him, he went full geek about it. I learned a lot about spoats that day.”

“What the fuck is that?” Hal asked. 

“Spoats. Spider goats. Genetic chimaera goats that produce spider silk in their milk.”

Hal paused. “I think that’s kind of horrifying, but in a cool way.”

“Right? It’s pretty—” there was a burst of static, presumably because Barry shifted, “—y’know?”

“I didn’t catch that. Also, since when does Clark lend you books? Since when do you read something that isn’t, I don’t know, fourteen layers of science-y bullshit?”

“I’m trying to read more fiction, there’s more to writing than what I can find on JSTOR when I’m bored.”

Hal yawned. “Oh, boy. Fuck. I’m losing you. You and Clark are going to start geeking out over, I don’t know, something nerdy that he’d like. Helioseismology. I’m guessing he just takes baths in the sun whenever he wants to relax, it’s got to be way better than a hot tub, so he must know a lot about it.”

Barry was silent, and then: “Would the ring protect you from that?”

“A hot tub? Bar, not even God can protect you from what’s in a hot tub.”

Barry chuckled. “No, the sun, you idiot.”

“No, no, it wouldn’t,” Hal said. “It’s one of the weaknesses.”

“Because it’s yellow.”

“The yellow part is kind of secondary to the sun part,” Hal explained. “Listen, on the cosmic scale of power, stars are pretty high up there. Stellar nucleosynthesis means the metal _ in  _ the ring was forged inside a star, and—what, why the fuck are you laughing.”

“‘Stellar nucleosynthesis’ says the asshole who was accusing me of being a geek, and then you pull out  _ stellar nucleosynthesis.” _

“I have to know this, it’s my job, shut up,” Hal whined. 

It was then that Hal realized there was a breeze, that cool night air was sifting through his open window—and he hadn’t opened it. He jerked upright. “Barry, I’m gonna—”

The phone was knocked out of his hand by—something, it moved too fast for his eyes to catch—and Hal crafted a construction of a net and flung it at the corner of the room. It caught empty air. Crouching a foot to the right of it, low to the ground, was someone Hal recognized.

“Okay,” he said. “Can we, er, talk this out, uh, Batgirl?”

Batgirl raised a finger to her mask—her mask covered her entire face, no lenses for the eyes, just a stitched patch over the mouth. She said, “Listen.”

“I’m really not feeling super willing to listen to someone who just attacked me in my apartment,” Hal said, but he lowered the arm where his ring sparkled and crackled with barely-restrained energy. 

Batgirl slithered forward and straightened when she was a foot way—she moved like a jungle cat. All of the Bats did, but there was something predatory, powerful in her motion that Hal couldn’t quite track. 

“You,” she said, poking him in the chest, “are. In… danger.”

“That’s usually true,” Hal said. 

Batgirl looked up at him. She reached up and pulled off her mask, revealing short, black hair cut in jagged edges and dark eyes that were turned up at the corners from mirth. “From me,” she finished. 

“I’m sure you’re a badass, all of you are,” Hal said, carefully. His irritation was rising. “But, listen, I’m a Green goddamn Lantern. All of your skill is nothing next to this ring, y’see? And whatever beef you’ve got with me, I’m—”

The hit took him by surprise—he didn’t see it coming, and she moved fast. He’d trained with Batman, he’d trained with Black Canary, and Batgirl moved faster than both. He was socked in the jaw and knocked to the ground by force he didn’t know she could pack, and then there was a boot on his throat and a little glowing ring held between her thumb and forefinger. 

“Okay, real—” she leaned on his neck in a way that cut off his ability to speak in a steady voice, without even taking her eyes off of the ring. She had the practiced, easy air of someone who had done this a thousand times; Hal realized, belatedly, that the predatory motion he couldn’t quite pin down was the intimate knowledge that she was the most dangerous person in the room. Which was an overconfidence that irritated him, and would lose her whatever edge of surprise she’d had. 

Hal started to make his move, and then the heel of her boot kicked into his collarbone and he felt himself go limp against his will. “What the fuck,” he said, strangled. 

Nerve strike. The League required regular training intervals, its most experienced combatants against its least; sometimes Black Canary, sometimes Batman, and if you were especially unlucky, Wonder Woman. The same lesson Batman had mentioned nerve strikes had been the one that Hal had leaned forward and kissed him—Hal now regretted his distraction, because maybe Bruce had said something, anything, about how to recover from one, but all Hal could remember now was,  _ Jordan, you’ll never have the finesse for a nerve strike, so stop asking questions. _

She turned the ring over in the light a few more times, and then looked down at him. Her eyes were like hot coals. “If,” she said, “hurt him. Any way.” 

She bent down and flicked Hal’s nose. “I do to you. Ten times over.”

“I cannot fucking believe this,” Hal said. “Holy shit. Holy shit, you’re giving me the  _ shovel talk— _ and oh, boy, am I going to have words with Bruce, because last I recall, I explicitly told him not to reveal our relationship to—”

He cut himself off. Her expression had shifted from fierce to apoplectic with rage, and she grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him up until they were nose-to-nose. “I  _ see. _ No. I  _ see.  _ You hurt him. I hurt you worse.”

She raised herself to her full height, shoulders squared. She looked down at him like he was something the dog had tracked in. “I do—not _ —lose,” _ she said, finally, dropping the ring so it thunked against his chest. She pulled on the mask that had been curled in her fist and she was gone in a moment, cape flaring out behind her like a thundercloud. 

Batgirl’s timing had been perfect, more than perfect; his limbs were flooded with feeling not seconds, but milliseconds after she was gone. “Fuck,” he hissed, rolling his neck. He sat up, catching his ring and slipping it back on his finger, and his eyes landed on his phone with its cracked screen, glowing in the corner. Barry was still on the call. 

Hal scrambled up on unsteady limbs and snatched it, holding it up to his ear. “Okay, uh,” he said. “Fun new game, let’s play, ‘How Much of That Did You Hear’?”

“Your relationship,” Barry said, flatly. 

Hal closed his eyes. “Listen, Barry, can I explain?”

“Go ahead.” 

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Hal said, quickly. “Remember that case we did, where a shapeshifter from Lloth was taking the forms of people in Gotham and murdering them? I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but we became… a weird sort of friends. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure if it would stay that way. It’s not my fault his—I don’t know what you’d even call it—are… the way they are.”

Barry fell silent for a long, aching moment, and then he whistled, long and low. “I would’ve gotten over it,” he said. “You hiding a relationship from me, I would’ve gotten over it. I get it, I would’ve asked you for a couple days of space and then I would’ve come by with a six-pack of beer so we could talk it out. But you followed up a lie with a lie, and that’s a low thing, to do to someone who’s your best friend. Do you really think I’m that awful?”

“Barry, I—”

“Just fuck off for a while,” Barry said. 

The line went dead. 

Hal stood there for a long time, tension curling his muscles, before he fired a bolt of green energy at his TV. It burned a hissing, spitting hole through the final scene of  _ The Mask.  _

With shaking hands, Hal dialed another number he knew by heart. “Bruce fucking Wayne, you bastard,” he said, the second it picked up. 

“Hello to you as well,” Bruce said, pleasantly. 

“Fuck you,” Hal spat. “Fuck you, you—garbage piece of shit.”

“What an opening line.”

“I told you,” Hal said, his voice shaking with the force of his anger, “I told you that I wasn’t okay with revealing our—our—to  _ anyone, _ and  _ Batgirl _ shows up while I’m on the phone with Barry and outs us? What the fuck is even wrong with you, you fucking—”

“Batgirl,” Bruce interrupted. “You mean Cass.”

“She gave me the—goddamn  _ shovel talk!” _ Hal shouted. “You  _ told her!” _

“I didn’t,” Bruce snapped. 

Hal stopped. Disbelief thrummed through him, and was followed quickly by a kind of cold, detached fury. “Are you seriously lying to me right now?”

“Christ, if I were lying, I would’ve come up with a better lie than that,” Bruce said. “Get over yourself, Hal. I didn’t tell Cass anything. She must’ve had opportunity to read it, and she did. As Cass does.”

“Read. So you’re saying you didn’t tell her, because you  _ wrote it down? _ Excuse me,  _ as she does?” _

Bruce growled wordlessly. There was a rustling like the re-settling of paper, and then he said, in a voice like gravel, “Cassandra,” he said, “has a unique ability, known only to her and Lady Shiva. She reads body language. It was her first language—she wasn’t taught English, just how to read people. It has made her a fighter of incomparable status but has left her with a diminished capacity to communicate with language, or language as you or I would understand it. The only reason you are getting this information,” and here Bruce paused for a long moment before continuing, “is because I—place a significant amount of _ —value _ on… this.”

Hal ran a shaking hand through his hair. “How the fuck did she…  _ read _ it? I mean, how does that work?”

“All she would need is to watch me for less than a minute to know something was different,” Bruce said. 

Hal’s heart thudded, hard.  _ Less than a minute, _ he had said. How long would Cass have to watch  _ Hal, _ to see the love written there, when Hal felt it was scoured on every inch of him?

“You should be proud,” Hal said, finally. “She kicked my ass.”

“You never stood a chance.”

“She had me on the floor in a second, Spooky, it was an ass-whooping for the ages.”

Bruce chuckled. It was a rough but warm sound that made Hal’s chest tighten, constrict as if it were in a steel vice. “I’ll talk to her,” he said. “She’s protective, Hal.”

Hal snorted. “I’ll fucking say.”

“Stay out of her way. I mean it.”

Hal grinned. “Significant amount of value, huh. You really do have a way with words. It’s a bad way, but it’s sure a way.”

“Shut up, Jordan.”

“‘Significant amount of value’ makes me sound like one of your cars. I guess that’s appropriate, since you do enjoy riding—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bruce snapped, and the line went dead. 

Hal sat awake in bed that night, brain humming with  _ what happens if Barry never speaks to me again, _ the look of unadulterated rage on Cass’s face when she looked at him,  _ less than a minute, I’ll see you tomorrow, I’ll see you tomorrow.  _

Hal didn’t know, and likely would never know, the process his brain had gone through in developing feelings for Bruce; he hadn’t known they existed, really, until he had been training with Bruce and thought  _ kiss him now kiss him now.  _ What he had expected to get was decked, or kneed in the balls—he ought to have swallowed some of his teeth, for surprising someone who was notoriously tightly wound. Instead what he got was a quiet, gentle kiss, and when Hal leaned back Bruce held his forehead to Hal’s and breathed out heavy breaths like a racehorse after a race. Too heavy, for such a short kiss. Hal wondered if Bruce felt the same way, felt that lightning crackling over every inch of his skin. Hal wondered how much mint tea Bruce had that morning, for his breath to smell like ice. Hal let himself be selfish, let himself close his eyes, let himself drink in Bruce’s closeness; he’d never feel it again.

“I am so fucking sorry,” Hal had said. “I am so—I should not have done that, I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe it’s low blood sugar, I haven't eaten today, you never really know, I’m a fucking idiot—”

“Shut up,” Bruce said. 

“Okay, I am one thousand percent sure you need to hear me apologize a couple hundred more times before you even consider letting me leave this room without breaking my arm in four places—”

“I told you,” Bruce snarled, “to shut up.”

“But you need to know I’m really fucking sorry,” Hal said. They were impossibly close, still. They were breathing each other’s air. Hal thought he could smell mint tea on Bruce’s breath—had he tasted it on Bruce’s tongue?

Bruce’s face twisted into a grimace. “I am trying to enjoy this, you half-wit.”

“Oh. Oh. You’re—so that’s—oh, okay—I—why?”

Bruce closed his eyes. “You  _ are _ a moron,” he rumbled.

Something in Hal’s chest knocked into place, some stranded piece of bone, some errant heartstring.  _ He wants this, _ Hal thought, stomach flipping.  _ He wants this as much as I do. _ “I was actually thinking,” Hal said, “that maybe we could do that again. If you’re game. If you’re enjoying this.”

Bruce’s eyes opened. They fixed on Hal’s, intense and heavy, like pack ice. “You were thinking.”

“I was.”

“With that hormone-addled, rusted contraption that is possibly illegal in at least seven states and three countries that you call a brain.”

“Oh, you are going to eat those words, you rat bastard.”

Bruce had smirked, and really, that had been the final nail in Hal’s coffin. “Make me,” he’d said, and at that point, it had just been overkill. 

But Hal had never been privy to the parts before that. Logically, he knew that they must have existed, but the transition from viewing Bruce as nothing more than a teammate to lingering on the cut of shadow beneath his cheekbones was seamless in a way Hal almost didn’t care to analyze. They never got along any better—even now, with an under-the-table relationship, they still argued like cats and dogs. The change was that, now, there was generally more sex afterwards, which Hal was very much a fan of, and sometimes Bruce said things like _ in less than a minute, _ and Hal’s heart thundered in its cage. 

He didn’t sleep much.

The next day, he lingered on the Watchtower, hoping to catch up with Barry. He did so at the risk of aggravating Bruce, who he had technically promised to meet—but there was something in Hal that wouldn’t be still until things with Barry were smoothed over. Barry was his best friend, had been his lifeline for a long time, and Bruce could wait his turn.

It took a couple hours for Hal to spot Barry; when he did, Barry was deep in conversation with the Atom and Hawkman, so Hal hung on the fringe of the conversation, wringing his hands, until Hawkman pulled him into it. Quite literally, in fact—Hawkman grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him forward.

“Green Lantern!” Hawkman said, beaming beneath the snarling hawk half-helm he wore. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Hal shrugged. He twirled his hand in a circle as he spoke: “Ah, yeah, you know. I’ve been around. Kind of. If you count ‘being around’ as being three solar systems over.”

The Atom grinned. “You know, we were just telling Flash here about a project we’re working on—Hawkman’s discovered some unique artifacts he’s having me take a bit of a, y’know,  _ microscopic  _ look at. We’re positive it’s not terrestrial. If you have the time, we really could use the database of a Green Lantern ring to cross-reference—”

“Sounds awesome,” Hal said, tightly. “Really, it does. Maybe if you send me a message through the League commlink, we can work out a time? I mean, there’s really no telling when the Guardians are gonna get on my ass about some new case. Hey, can I borrow Flash, for a second?”

The Atom grinned ear-to-ear and clapped Hal on the shoulder. “Thanks, really, Lantern. It means a lot. It really would be a breakthrough in our understanding of—”

“One minute,” Barry said, brightly. “Lantern’s got some intel for me that’s pretty urgent. Meet me in the lunchroom later, I want to hear more.”

The poor fuckers they were, neither Atom nor Hawkman seemed to realize they were getting blown off—they just kept smiling and nodding. They were an odd pair, the two of them; the Atom was short and scrawny, and Hawkman was a beast of a man, with at least thirty pounds on Hal, and regularly fought dragons with a giant mace, while the Atom puttered about a science lab all day. But the two of them were thick as thieves. 

Barry all but dragged Hal to an empty conference room. Hal got the distinct sense that Barry would have slammed the door, if it hadn’t been one of the fancy sliding doors that Bruce had probably paid out of the ass for, for no reason other than aesthetic. Hal wondered idly if he could get a taunt or two out of that, wondered if he could get Bruce suitably annoyed and huffy, because winding Bruce up was one of Hal’s favorite things. But then Barry's glare was turned in his direction.

“So that was a conversation that I was enjoying that you just bulldozed your way into because you felt like it,” Barry said, evenly. 

Hal gestured wildly to the general area where Hawkman and the Atom were. “Okay, now you’re just being unfair. Enjoying? Seriously? It’s Hawkman and the fuckin’ Atom, I’m pretty sure their version of fun is, I don’t know, swallowing gallons of sand while looking at an ancient bowl some dumb neanderthal fuck carved.”

This was the wrong thing to say. Barry’s scowl carved itself deeper into his face. “Here’s the part where you apologize for insulting good friends of mine.”

Hal closed his eyes and dragged a hand over his face. “I’m fucking this up.”

“I’ll say.”

“Quiet, you. Can we talk, though? Like really talk?”

Barry shrugged, and then leaned against the wall, looking for all the world like they were discussing the weather. “I don’t know, can we?”

Hal blew a breath out through his teeth. “I’m trying to be civil, but fuck, you are really making that hard. Can I just apologize without any passive-aggressive nonsense—and shit, do you know how pissed I get at you, that it’s always  _ passive- _ aggressive and never just plain aggressive? I’d rather know—nevermind. Shit. This is going badly.”

Hal dropped his head into his hands, and through them, he said, “Fuck, Barry, I’m sorry. I really am. Lying was shitty of me to do to you, especially considering how long you’ve been my best friend, I just—I didn’t. I don’t know. Me and Bats, it’s complicated—or, I don’t know, maybe it isn’t—but it’s just, it’s.”

“Stop talking,” Barry said. He looked pained, from behind his cowl.

“What?” Hal snapped. “What the actual fuck? Here I am, baring my fucking neck to you, and you’ve got the balls to tell me to  _ stop talking— _ I’m trying to hold an actual emotional conversation for the first time in my life, because you’re that important to me, you motherfucker. You unbelievable asshole. Fuck you, maybe Batman and I are dating, and fuck your homophobic little—”

“Holy Mars Bars,” a quiet, mousy voice said behind him. 

Hal stilled. His heartbeat thrummed wildly in time with the mantra of  _ shtifuckshitfuckshitshit _ that coursed through his head. He turned around slowly. “Hey, uh, Atom,” he said, hoarsely. “How much of that—uh, how much of that did you hear. And all of what you heard is getting told to no one, even if you, uh, didn’t hear anything. Which you didn’t. Because I’m the universe’s favorite son, and it’s smiling on me, and you didn’t hear anything.”

The Atom’s eyes, visible through his mask, were blown wide. Behind him, Hawkman was grinning a crocodile’s grin. “Buy our silence,” he said. Atom tried to speak up, but Hawkman shushed him, genuinely shushed him, holding a finger to his mouth and everything.

Hal’s eyebrows crawled to his hairline. “Buy your silence? Hello, dickweed, this ring on my finger means I owe you _ jack.  _ And here I thought you were cool, but no, breaking into locked rooms—”

“It was not locked,” Atom squeaked. "I just wanted to let Flash know we wouldn't be around for lunch."

“Buy our silence,” Hawkman repeated. “I believe you owe us some help. With that ring of yours.”

“You—” Hal remembered the conversation he had bulldozed through, and he closed his eyes and sighed. “Fine. Fucking fine, okay? I’ll do your stupid—science thing, you absolute fuckers.”

Hawkman’s grin spread only wider, and he clapped the Atom on the shoulder. “It was nice doing business with you. By the way, did you make the first move, or did Batman, because I’m really curious about—”

Hal formed a construct of a fly swatter and shoved them both from the room, and then Barry zipped over and locked the door. It took Hal a minute to realize Barry was laughing, and then rage beat in his heart, and he snarled, “Oh, is this fucking funny to you?”

Barry’s laughter was cut off instantly. “I’m sorry,” he said, tightly. “You’ve gotta admit, though, it’s karma.”

“Bruce is going to skin me alive, and it’s karma to you,” Hal said dully. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Barry said. 

Hal shook his head. “I know, I know—I just _ —fuck! _ He’s never going to forgive me. He might break up with me. Holy shit, he might break up with me, and I—I don’t know—”

Barry was in front of him, Barry’s hands were on Hal’s shoulders. “Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. I’ll help explain.”

“You don’t have to,” Hal said, without looking at Barry. 

“I’d be willing to, though.”

Hal patted Barry’s hand, and Barry’s hands fell from Hal’s shoulders, fidgeting at his sides. “I’m okay,” Hal said. 

Barry frowned. “You’re always lying, when you say that, you know.”

Hal shrugged. “It always works out in the end, though, so to be honest, it’s the best thing I can say.”

Barry held up two fingers. “Two Hal-less days, that’s all I need. You lied to me, and I haven’t forgotten that, and I need some time to process that. And, yes, don’t give me that face, it’s going to take… adjustment, to get used to the idea of you two, alright? It's weird. It's deeply weird. But I’ll get there. Two days, that’s it. Is that okay?”

Hal nodded. “That’s okay.”

“One question I do need to ask, though,” Barry said. His voice was suddenly grave. “Does he make you happy? Do you feel good with him, like you’re on cloud nine, like the streets are paved with gold? Do you want to be around him because it’s good for Hal, not just because it’s good for Bruce?”

_ In less than a minute, _ Bruce had said. 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Hal said, with a grin.

They parted ways after that, Hal feeling lighter than he’d felt in months; Hal jetted off to the Batcave, and the Flash bolted off towards Central City. It was liberating, to not be lying to Barry. Maybe he’d suggest a double date with Barry and Iris to Bruce—Hal looked forward to watching Bruce go green at the gills after hearing _ that  _ suggestion. Barry had said it would take time for him to adjust to the idea of Hal and Bruce, and there was a desperate part of Hal that wanted to show him,  _ here, look, this is me, this is us, this is how we work, can you see the love that lives here? _

Hal zipped through the cavern that the Batmobile rumbled down nightly and lighted down down on the metal grate. "Babe," he called, loudly. "We've got a problem."

Hal jogged deeper into the Cave, following the sound of leather meeting leather. "I know you can hear me, baby, and I'm really—oh. Oh."

In a recess in the side of the Cave, the gym was nestled, connected to the main landing pad the Batmobile sat on by a metal walkway with bright yellow railing. But the gym's floor was below the level of the walkway, meaning that a person would have to walk a distance before they could see people grappling on the mats, which was the exact mistake Hal made. 

A burly woman at Hal glared at him from her position pinning Bruce. "Do you mind?" she snapped.

"If I may have a moment with the Green Lantern, Barda," Bruce said lowly.

Barda rose and offered Bruce a hand. She was dressed in her full blue-and-gold-and-red armor, just without the massive headdress, and her hair was tied up in a bun. She had thick brows pinched in a constant scowl, and she stood at a little over seven feet tall; she was utterly terrifying, and it took effort, on Hal's part, to ignore his instinctive fear of Big Barda. Considerable effort. 

Bruce stood. Hal's mouth went dry—Bruce's gray shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to the muscles underneath in a way Hal could drink in for hours. His brain filed away the image for later. "A moment, Barda," he said. 

"I remind you," she said, "that you asked for this training, Batman." 

Bruce nodded. "And I thank you for it. Please, help yourself to anything in the fridge—" Bruce pointed out across the gym to a sleek black fridge situated in the corner, "—and I will return shortly."

Barda grunted and crossed her arms. Hal got the sense her displeasure was for show, because the corner of her mouth ticked upwards in amusement.

And then Bruce turned, and he was scowling at Hal thunderously. 

Hal started back along the walkway, following Bruce. Bruce led him to a far reach of the Cave, the aisle of trophies taken from conquered foes and showcasing old suits, and then positioned himself behind a glass case holding a heavily armored Batsuit. "You," he growled. "You have no sense, you infernal little—"

"You're going to want to hear this before you get mad at me, because you're just gonna have to get mad at me again, and that's a hassle," Hal said. "Just remember all the reasons you love me, okay? Just think of those for a solid second." 

Bruce's brows furrowed. "I have it in mind," he said. 

Hal grinned. "Oh, really? Then what's on the top of the list?" 

Bruce made a gesture with his hand, in the direction of Hal's face. "You have dimples. I appreciate them. Aesthetically." 

"Come the fuck on, all of the things that are sexy about me, and you pick the fucking dimples? Please. Try again. Do better this time. Maybe compliment my ass, I have a nice ass."

Bruce leaned forward, smirking. "You're not doing a good job," he said, "of convincing me not to be angry with you." 

Hal crossed his arms. "Do I still have a chance at getting laid tonight?" 

"Depends on your next words." 

Hal's gaze skittered sideways. "I made up with Barry." 

"I consider that a neutral response. You have equal chances of both outcomes, proceed carefully. Am I supposed to be angry with you about the impending shovel talk? Good God, you can’t possibly think I have so little control of my temper." 

Hal held up a finger. "First of all, no shovel talk can top your goddamn wild little Cass, first of fucking all. Barry will give you the most polite threat of all time, and that's it. He might buy you flowers. Me? I got mauled by a bear. You threw me to the wolves." 

Bruce studied him. "I find it curious how deeply you underestimate the depth of Barry's love for you." 

Hal groaned. "Shut up, this is not psychoanalyze Hal hour. It is, however, maybe, uh, 'Barry and I didn't lock the door while talking' hour, and now—and now Hawkman and the Atom may know some, erm,  _ pertinent _ things about who I'm sleeping with."

"You little shit," Bruce said immediately. His eyes were flat. They were flat, and that terrified Hal more than anything.

"I'm sorry!" Hal shouted. "I didn't mean—it was a mistake, honest to God." 

Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Does _ —this _ matter so little to you that you could not lock a door to protect it," he said. “Does it truly.”

Hal's heart sank. "Bruce," he said, helplessly. 

"Does it," Bruce repeated, more vehemently. 

"That's not what I was thinking," Hal said. "I swear. Baby, I'm not like you. No one is. I'm not constantly thinking of every possibility that could happen, ever—I forget. I'm sorry. But how fucking dare you  _ assume _ I don't care about this relationship, and yes, you can say the word, it won't kill you. Not when I keep thinking this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Not when I'm happy that it would take your demon child  _ less than a minute _ to see love in you that  _ I  _ put there. Goddammit, but I am proud of that." 

Bruce closed his eyes. After a long, aching moment, he stepped forward and leaned his forehead against Bruce's, and they breathed the same air for a moment before Bruce pressed a kiss against Hal's lips. He tasted like mint tea. He always seemed to.

When they parted, Bruce said, "It is your turn to be angry at me." 

"What the fuck did you do," Hal said. 

"It is curious, how sound carries in this cave. Barda may not be able to hear us. But she could definitely see us, if she were looking. If she were interested. Which I have reason to believe she might be, because one of us greeted the other with _ baby." _

Hal breathed out through his nose. "You asshole. You fucking asshole. You unbelievable, incomparable bastard." 

"I made an executive decision. Error for an error. We’re even, you can stop looking like your dog’s been murdered. She already knew, at any rate. You flew in here calling me  _ baby,  _ I emphasize again."  


"Shut the hell up," Hal snarled. "Mine was an accident, you got that? This was _ —intentional. _ What the fuck." 

Bruce shrugged, but he looked thoughtful. "Barda and Scott Free have the most functional relationship of anyone I know. If we want to make it, perhaps we could learn from them." 

"Not ten minutes ago you were about to tear into me for an  _ accident,"  _ Hal said.

"Maybe," Bruce said, "I have changed my mind.”

"You… have issues." 

"I am aware." 

Hal dropped his forehead so it was pressed into Bruce's shoulder. "Seriously, Spooky, that's not how feelings work. Like, me? I'm terrified. Out of my mind. And that is a sensible reaction. You, however, make no goddamn sense. Every time I feel like I understand how that big, beautiful brain of yours works, you fuck me over. You’re like catching smoke.”

"You’re clever, I think you’ll manage," Bruce said. One of his hands was pressed between Hal's shoulder blades. 

“Oh, no, the world is ending. The world is absolutely ending. You were just nice to me.”

Bruce snorted. “I am frequently nice to you. You just have your head so far up your ass that you can’t see it.”

Hal laughed into Bruce’s shoulder. “Shut the fuck up," Hal said. "But it's just—it felt good, to tell Barry. It was nice. Warm n’fuzzies, y’know. I have no idea how I feel about the Frees knowing, though. I barely know them. Remind me to be righteously pissed with you when I’m not relieved we’re still together. We’ll fight about it." 

“You seem to think very little of my perception,” Bruce said.

Hal twisted his head so his cheek was pressed flush with Bruce’s shirt. “Hell yeah, I think little of your perception. You complimented my dimples over my ass. You have objectively poor taste.”

“No. I mean my perception of Hawkman and the Atom. As much value as they contribute to the League, they are still… who they are.”

“Meaning?”

“They could tell the most gullible man on Earth that we’re together,” Bruce said, “and he’d never believe them.”

Hal grinned. “I don’t think they’re going to tell Booster Gold anytime soon.”

Bruce growled in his throat, probably at the idea of Booster Gold knowing anything even mildly associated with Bruce’s personal life, and Hal threw his head back and laughed.

Bruce bent his mouth next to Hal's ear. His voice was a bare whisper. "It would take anyone with eyes," he said, softly, "less than a minute, to see the love in me that you put there. If they knew what they were looking for." 

“My chances of getting laid sound more like a hundred and ten percent.”

Bruce swatted the back of his head, and Hal leaned away from him, chuckling. But he was warm, inside every piece of him, in every bone and pulsing vein.

**Author's Note:**

> I want you guys to think about something: every time Bruce makes a new superfriend, his newest child just shows up and makes sure that superfriend knows that Cass can kick their ass. She's a darling.
> 
> Next up: Booster Gold, Wonder Woman, and Dick being a dick.


End file.
